


The Greatest Game

by musamihi



Category: Scarlet Pimpernel - Orczy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 03:25:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musamihi/pseuds/musamihi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony and Andrew find more freedom in Paris than at home, short-lived though it might be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Greatest Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [k8](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=k8).



> This is hardly _epic_ \- more of a quiet moment shared between two men. But I couldn't resist the chance to write some League slash, and I very much enjoyed doing so. I may just have to add this pairing to my usual rotation. :)

The door stands to waist height in the bent _Rue des Gres_, which is little more than an alley full of castings off from the cafes that front on the _Place Michel_. To exit, Armand (one of the shorter of their band) must stoop and narrow himself by hunching his shoulders. Tony and Andrew watch him from their place in the _Rue de la Liberté_. When he has climbed the gentle slope to the _Rue Jacques_ and disappeared from sight, still they wait. Half an hour later, after sauntering over to the Garden's western gate, they see him pass by, now indistinguishable from the other law students swarming away from the school in the waning afternoon.

This is the last they should see of him until the end of the mission, God willing. Percy they may not see at all – or may not know they've seen him until they are all recounting their success over claret in the cramped quarters aboard the _Daydream_. The people of Paris know well that every crippled old woman slouching down the street may be the spy that sends them to waste away in the _Saint-Germain-des-Pres_; Tony and Andrew know that she may also be a strapping, six-foot saviour in disguise, an _entrée_ to paradise – to England.

An hour passes. Finally, they make the short journey into the alley, glance about for prying eyes, and duck inside.

Tony latches and locks the door behind them several times. The safehouse has a musty smell, acquired from months of disuse and the sudden damp of winter. The only light is grey and cold, filtering in from a twisted glass panel hardly as high as a man's hand. There is a small stove, a table that must do for writing and for eating, and one bed. The blankets look dry, fresh, and terribly inviting after a full day of standing about in the bleak cold of the city, and Tony starts for it at once. He trips almost immediately.

"That _boy_," he mutters, bending down to gather no less than three jackets that have been left on the floor.

"He's left the stove a mess, as well," Andrew says, shoveling ash out into a little tin bucket. He has shed his outer layers, the tattered old robes and mangy hair of a beggar, into a neatly folded pile on the floor. "The fire will be a few minutes, I'm afraid."

Tony sits on the edge of the mattress, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, and watches blurred, distorted feet pass by their wretched excuse for a window. Every muscle in his back aches to lie down; his entire body is slow and heavy in anticipation of sleep. But he will stay awake. This house provides more than a place to hide from the furious sweep of the forces of _Salut Public_. It is one of the only places he can lie with Andrew without fear.

Soon he hears the stove-grating click shut. A pleasantly dry, woody smell begins to drive the dankness out of the room. Then Andrew is standing in front of him, reaching down to slip his hand inside the great, ragged lapel of his coat. "Let me have those," he says quietly, and Tony shrugs off the miserable pelt, hands him the scratchy wig, and kicks off his muddied boots. He watches until Andrew is almost finished hanging them by the door, then gives in to his fatigue. The bedding is gloriously yielding. He hears Andrew padding over in his stocking feet, and feels him start to climb under the covers beside him.

"No – come here," Tony says. There's a faintly indulgent smile on Andrew's lips as he relinquishes the blankets and obeys, carefully straddling Tony's hips. His foot presses gently against Tony's calf as he leans close over his chest, forearms buried in the pillows. His fair hair falls around them both, more silver than gold in the weak light, and his shirt hangs between them as he touches his lips to Tony's, at first soft, warm and dry like a kiss from the embers across the room. Tony pushes his fingers into Andrew's hair and kisses him eagerly, until the heat of his mouth and tongue has begun to warm him though, until their ribs are rising and falling more quickly. It is their first kiss since the last time they left Calais for Dover.

Tony pulls at the tails of Andrew's shirt, tugging them out of his waistband and running the flat of his hand along Andrew's finely muscled side, sending an animal shiver along his spine. He pulls the shirt over Andrew's head, working with a low laugh to disentangle the collar pin from his hair. For a quiet moment, he enjoys the body laid half-bare before him – strokes along the cool, smooth skin of his shoulders and flanks, gropes at the curve of his hip and the slope of his leg. And then he grips him firmly by the waist and rolls him, eliciting a happy sigh from Andrew as he relaxes back into the warmth of the coverlet and Tony settles heavily between his thighs.

"I thought we would have to stand there all night," Tony says, sinking his face into the corner where Andrew's throat and shoulder meet, and breathing deeply. "St. Just does like to take his bloody time."

"The French are late sleepers." Andrew twines his arms around his neck, his back arching slightly.

Tony feels his mouth drawing up into a smirk. "Do you think he was sleeping? I imagine he pines by the window all day long, yearning to be home with his dear Jeanne."

"You may be right." Andrew makes a sound deep in his throat as Tony props himself up to work at unfastening his belt. "Not everyone is so lucky as we are, after all."

"Even we are not always so lucky." He knows Andrew is already thinking the very same; and while the thought of Andrew _pining_ is a ridiculous one, Tony knows he feels these things more keenly – more openly in his own heart, at least – than other men he knows. When they reunite after journeys on which Blakeney has not seen fit to take them both, he is always the more heated in his greetings. Tony feels, of course, the deep, swelling satisfaction of having his lover again in his arms; but it is Andrew's face that's flushed, his eyes that shine with pleasure.

_A bit too _French_, i'faith, Ffoulkes,_ he said to him once, when Andrew looked almost offended at the suggestion that whisking a young woman away from the clutches of the guillotine was, first and foremost, a bit of fun.

_And am I sport to you?_ Andrew asked later, when Tony had him cornered in Blakeney's deserted drawing room, pinned up against the wainscoting, disheveled and trembling.

_Love is the greatest game of all, my good man,_ Tony replied, buried so deep inside of Andrew that they might have been one. He remembers the moment perfectly, and will until he dies. Andrew's waistcoat sketched his body's perfect shape in dove grey against the wine-colored wood; his hair leapt with brilliant golden flashes in the low candlelight. The way Andrew's trousers hobbled him as they pooled around his ankles and caught in the buckles of his boots made Tony half mad with desire. He did love him. He does.

"This time, luck is on our side." Andrew's voice cuts into his reverie, and Tony brings himself into the present, renewing his efforts to be rid of the clothes that lie between them. They only have until midnight, and, little as he cares to admit it, they _will_ need sleep. There's a moment of confusion, of pulling and twisting and battling with trouser legs. Soon they are both naked, huddled beneath the blankets; only Tony's fingers are warm, pressing gently down against Andrew's tongue, making a slow study of his mouth. It may be a very long time before they share a room again, never mind a bed. Outside the bitter wind hurtles over the full gutters of the alley, down into the stone valley of the river and up its long, winding path to the north, where home awaits them, all too close.


End file.
